


heirloom

by somehowunbroken



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Families of Choice, Future Fic, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Healing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-07
Updated: 2018-12-07
Packaged: 2019-09-13 12:08:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16892322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somehowunbroken/pseuds/somehowunbroken
Summary: It's been ten years since Mitch got a middle-of-the-night phone call that changed pretty much everything. Now, on the anniversary of Auston's accident, he's heading to Arizona to do some celebrating and some mourning and maybe some road tripping with Auston's fifteen-year-old son.





	heirloom

**Author's Note:**

> -have you ever heard a song and gone "oh, wow, i'm having feelings," and then 12k of fic happens? no? yeah, i thought it might be a me problem.
> 
> -relatedly, the title is from "[heirloom](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avniWHc0zVM)" by sleeping at last.
> 
> -thanks to stonesnuggler and hockeycaptains for their last-minute hand-holding, and to ari for encouraging this at first, even though she might have later retracted that encouragement when she realised that i actually killed off auston matthews.
> 
> - **warnings:** the major character death tag is for auston and his OC wife. it's offscreen, it's seen through mitch's eyes while he's in shock early in the story, and the details are vague. this whole fic is about them in a way, though, and how people deal with grief and loss and how they're kind of cyclical and you learn to live with it more than you learn to get over it. if this is not a story you want to read, then please click away. take care of yourselves. <3

It's not that Mitch is expecting the phone call, but when it comes, he's not surprised.

"Hey, Ema," he says. He hasn't heard her voice since Easter, but they've been texting. "How are you?"

Ema sighs. "Good, Mitch, I'm good," she says. "How are you?"

"Doing well," Mitch replies. "We're getting ready to open up a new program and facility in Alberta in the fall, so I've been doing a lot of the coordination on that." It's nothing Ema doesn't already know, but if there's one thing Mitch has learned about talking with Ema Matthews in the past decade, it's that she'll get to things when she's good and ready to, and not a minute before that. "How's Matí?"

Ema sighs again, deeper this time. "That's kind of why I'm calling you," she says, almost like it's a confession. "Matías is... he's having a rough time, not that he's actually letting on."

Mitch closes his eyes. He'd kind of gathered, sure, with how tight-lipped Alex has been when he's asked and how Breyana has been cheerier and cheerier on social media in a way that only seems natural if you don't know her. It's a bad time of year for all of them, and Mitch knows Matí probably isn't handling it well. "I can talk to him," Mitch offers, his eyes still closed. "I'm just shaking hands up here, Ema. Say the word and I'll get on a plane."

"Mitch," Ema says. There's something like relief in her voice, but something else, too. "That would be wonderful, but that's not what I'm asking."

"Okay," Mitch says slowly. He opens his eyes and frowns at the hotel wallpaper. "What _are_ you asking, then?"

"I was hoping you could take him for a little while," she says eventually. "Not long. A long weekend, maybe, if you could spare the time." She hesitates. "He's been asking a lot of questions we don't know how to answer lately, and I thought..."

Mitch swallows hard. "A long weekend," he repeats. "Let me—I have to check on that. I'd love to say yes, but taking a day off isn't as big an ask as taking a few, even if I do run the place."

"I know," Ema says simply. "And if you can't, Mitch, if you can only get a day, we'd love to see you just for that."

"And I'd love to see you," Mitch replies almost on autopilot. He's trying to remember his calendar; he's pretty sure he doesn't have anything super pressing over the next week, but he wants to make sure before he puts any plans in motion. "Let me get back to you, okay? If I can get the time, Ema, I'll take him off your hands for a little while."

"He's a good boy, Mitch," Ema says. "It's just... it's hard."

Mitch laughs a little, and he can hear how humourless it sounds to his own ears. "Yeah."

"Let me know if you can," Ema says. "And if you can't, we understand, we do. You have your own life, and dropping everything for us is a lot to ask. Please know that we do know that."

"I'll let you know," Mitch promises. "Let me make a few calls, okay?"

"Thank you," Ema says. "Take care. I love you."

Mitch has to squeeze his eyes shut. "Love you too, Mama," he manages, and then he hangs up.

It takes him a few minutes and a deep breathing exercise before he can release the tension in his shoulders and open his eyes again, but he's had a lot of practice at that over the years. Hockey doesn't exactly create a stress-free environment, and neither does working for a non-profit, throwing his weight and his name and his face around to get every dime he can from every donor possible, then turning around and making sure it's all allocated exactly where it's needed most. He's had a lot of practice with different methods of de-stressing himself by this point, so before long, Mitch is rolling his head a little to loosen his neck as he thumbs through his phone to check his calendar.

There's nothing that he can't reorganise, nothing that can't be moved around without too much trouble. People are going to be understanding about it, too, he knows. They'll take a look at the date, at all the media coverage, at where, exactly, Mitch is heading, and they won't ask too many questions. He can absolutely get the time off.

He stares at his phone instead of starting the calls he's going to have to make, though, because his calendar is open, and June 6 is coming up, and—

Mitch still remembers the day in almost freeze-frame detail, is the thing. He knows that all the media attention lately hasn't been helping; it'll be the ten-year anniversary this time next week, and the media loves nothing so much as an emotional story, and Mitch and Matías are the clearest links the hockey community has to Auston, and—

Mitch takes another deep breath, pulls up the phone number of his right-hand person at the Auston Matthews Foundation, and dials.

-0-

The flight to Arizona gives Mitch time to think. It's a good thing, usually, because he's almost always flying around North America for Foundation things, and the alone time on the plane gives him time to review files or think about strategies or prepare himself in some way for the meetings he's heading to. Now, though, he's heading to Arizona. There's no donor, no community leader, no person he's going to have to meet with in a business capacity. There's just Arizona, just Ema and Brian, just his best friend's son waiting there for him.

Mitch had been twenty-eight, caught up in the fever of the playoffs and the promise of a Cup final, the energy of the city and the team a whirlwind everywhere he'd looked. He was the older single guy on the team, half team dad and half cool older brother to the starry-eyed young guys. There were Leafs legends in the stands and the locker room and the press box, and there hadn't been a doubt in Mitch's mind that this was _their year,_ that nothing could stand between them and finally getting their names on the Cup.

And then—

He'd known in a mostly clinical fashion that his was the emergency next-of-kin name on a lot of Auston's paperwork. He and Jaymee had been married for a little over three years, yeah, but it's easier team-wise to have a teammate on your forms somewhere, just in case something goes really, really wrong during a game. Auston had been on all of Mitch's paperwork, and Mitch had been on Auston's, and it was a silly formality of a detail that Mitch honestly had forgotten about completely.

When his phone had started ringing in the middle of the night, his first though had been that it was probably a teammate, someone with last-minute nerves before the upcoming series. He'd grabbed the phone and answered without looking at who was calling, because whoever needed him this late, he'd figured, it was important enough to pick up.

And, well. He hadn't been wrong.

A car accident, the calm-voiced nurse on the other end of the line had said. Very serious. You're on his contact card, and we think it's best if you can make it to Toronto General as soon as you can, Mr. Marner.

Mitch hadn't bothered to put clothing on; the hospital had probably seen people in worse things than Leafs sweats and a crumpled tee, and his mind had been on getting himself to the hospital as quickly and safely as he could. _A car accident,_ his mind kept replaying every time his speedometer crept a little higher. _A car accident._

He'd called Ema, called Brian; they were in town for the finals, and they had Matí with them. Neither of them had answered. It was the middle of the night, Mitch reasoned with himself. They needed to know, needed to get to the hospital, but he couldn't stop. He'd called his brother in a panic, and Chris promised to drive over, to rouse them and let them know. Mitch thanked him, hands shaking, as he'd parked his car and raced into the hospital.

The nurse who'd called him recognised him immediately, and she led him to a small private room. She'd brought him water, asked him to sit, and then a blank-faced doctor had walked in, and that—that's what Mitch remembers most, sitting on a plane somewhere above the Rockies. That's when he'd started to actually feel really, really scared, because the doctor had stared at her papers for a long moment before sighing and sitting next to Mitch, and he'd known immediately that the news would be bad.

The car had been hit from the side, the doctor said, quickly but gently. A drunk driver blew through an intersection. Jaymee Hernandez had died on impact, and Auston Matthews was in surgery, but the doctor couldn't, wouldn't give him the odds on Auston making it out. She'd check in with him from time to time, she'd added, but no news was good news.

He'd nodded, stomach churning. Jaymee was—and Auston—

The doctor had left. The nurse had asked if there was someone she could call for him. Mitch had thrown up into the garbage can on the floor next to his chair.

The nurse had patted him on the back and taken the can away. Mitch had texted his brother with shaking fingers. _Bad. Bad bad bad bad, Chris._

Ema and Brian ran into Mitch's waiting room half an hour later, Matí cranky and bewildered in Brian's arms, to find Mitch sobbing into the nurse's shoulder. The doctor had just left. Auston hadn't made it.

He's—not over it, that's the wrong way to put it, Mitch thinks as the flight attendant asks everyone to fasten their seatbelts. But he's come to terms with it, with how awful and unfair life is sometimes, with how one minute you're settling in to sleep before the biggest series of your life and the next you're sitting with your best friend's family at his funeral, Ema holding tightly to his hand while Matí climbed into his lap, curled up into a little ball, and refused to be consoled by Mitch or anyone else. At least, Mitch reflects, at least Auston has his name on the Cup. It's the only one on the Cup for that year at all; Mitch doesn't remember the details and he'd never looked them up, but the NHL had cancelled the final series, Colorado quietly agreeing to whatever the terms had been, and next to _2024-25_ on the Cup it simply says _Auston Matthews._

It had been a lot then. It's still a lot now, and Mitch isn't kidding himself about it. He's been done with that for a while now.

Getting off the plane and making his way through the airport is the kind of easy that's born out of a lifetime of being on planes; it doesn't take Mitch long to get to the baggage claim area, find his bag, and send Ema a text. They text back and forth a few times, directions and locations, and before long, Mitch is folding Ema into his arms beside her car.

"Hi," he says, voice not much above a whisper.

"Hi," Ema replies, arms wrapped tightly around his waist. Her hair is grayer now, but she's still so much the woman Mitch met half a lifetime ago, and there's always something really comforting about re-realising that fact. She pulls back a little and smiles up at him, but it wavers a little around the edges. "Matí didn't want to come. He's at home playing some sort of video game that I can't even begin to understand."

Mitch smiles. "Don't worry, that's a language I can still speak," he says, lifting his bag and putting it into the trunk. "I'll play interpreter."

She laughs and wipes at her eyes, stepping back so she can get into the driver's seat. "I'll take you up on that."

-0-

Matí is bigger than he'd been the last time Mitch visited; it always strikes him, he thinks a little ruefully, but kids keep _growing._ He's playing some kind of first-person shooter on the television in his room when Mitch knocks on the door, and he glances over and then looks right back to the television without saying anything.

"Hi to you too," Mitch says, leaning against the frame of the door. "How's it going?"

"Shitty," Matí says, focus still trained on the television. It's not the realistic kind of game that Mitch had played when he was younger; it's some sort of bizarre, brightly-coloured thing, the trees and rocks that Mitch is more used to traded in for blocky, surrealist architecture and a gun that looks more like it would shoot bubbles than anything that would actually cause a person harm.

"Yeah, well," Mitch says. he walks in and taps Matí on the shoulder. "Are you playing multiplayer or solo?"

"Solo," Matí says. He does something complicated with his fingers on the game pad, and the screen fills with light. The sound is down, Ema's preference, but a banner appears at the top of the screen as confetti falls. The screen fades to gray as game totals come up, and Matí finally turns to look at Mitch. "Why, you want to play?"

"Sure," Mitch says, grinning at him. "I haven't had my ass kicked in a while. Show me how it's done."

Matí snorts, but he scoots over and hands Mitch the controller. Mitch stares at it kind of blankly; it's a flat, dark gray surface, and other than a few drawn-on figures there's nothing at all to manipulate. "Uh," he says, glancing up at Matí. "I've never used a Pro Pad before, so you're gonna have to tell me how to do the no-buttons thing."

"You are _so old,_ " Matí says, laughing and bumping their shoulders together, and it's funny, how Mitch can remember saying that exact same thing, how he never realised how young it must have made him seem when he did. "Here, look."

They mess around with the PS7 for a while; Mitch is terrible at it, and it's not even him trying to die in hilarious ways just to make Matí laugh like he had when they were both younger and Mitch still had joysticks on his controllers. He's just genuinely bad at this, and he feels a pang when it makes him think of Auston, about changing controllers and new games and being so unbelievably bad at every single COD on the market.

"So," Mitch says. They've been at it for long enough that the sun is starting to set; dinnertime had come and gone, but Ema had left them to do their thing. "Tell me about how shitty it is."

Matí sighs like he's put upon, and he leans far enough back on his bed that he ends up sprawled across most of it. "It's ten years, so everyone wants to remember him," he says, voice flat. "And they want me to remember him. In public, on camera."

"And you don't want to," Mitch says. "That's fine, Matí. You don't have to."

"Uncle Mitch," Matí says. He's suddenly a little too still, his voice a little too quiet. "They want me to remember, and I'm afraid—what if I _dont?_ "

Mitch opens his mouth and then clicks it shut again. He just has to blink at Matí for a minute, because the thought of _not remembering_ Auston and Jaymee isn't something Mitch ever thought about before, but Matí had been so young. He'd been born two years before Auston and Jaymee had actually gotten married, and she'd named him _Matías Robert Hernandez,_ refusing to give him Auston's name without marrying him first, but smiling and giving him a first name that sort of did the trick anyway. They'd always talked about maybe changing it, but they never had, and Mitch has no idea if it was ever really a serious conversation or if it was more of an inside joke kind of thing, and it suddenly occurs to Mitch that Matí might not _know_ any of that. He'd been five and a half, and that's old enough for him to have some vague memories, but suddenly Mitch gets why Ema had called him.

He lays down next to Matí on the bed, turning so they're facing each other. "You might not," he says, careful and quiet. He's learned, over the years, to be as honest as he can with Matí, with kids in general. "But we'll all do our best to help. You know that, right? Whatever questions you have, we'll all try to answer them."

"That's why Abi called you, I know," Matí says. "I just... is it okay if I don't really even know what to ask?"

Mitch has to swallow against the lump in his throat. "Of course," he says. "You don't have to know everything. I know that's, like, not a super popular opinion, but it's true."

Matí laughs a little as his stomach grumbles. "I guess I do know my first question," he says. "Belo told me want a lot of Dad's favourite foods were, stuff he asked Abi to make for him, but..." He smiles, a little secretive. "What did he eat on cheat days?"

It makes Mitch laugh. "Oh, man," he says, feeling the smile stretch across his face. "Are you hungry enough to go out? Because I can actually show you the answer to that question, and trust me, you're going to be absolutely horrified."

Matí sits up straight. "I am starving," he declares, and Mitch remembers being not quite sixteen, growing faster than his body knew how to actually grow. "Show me what my dad liked to eat."

-0-

The look on Matí's face when they pull into the nearest Taco Bell is quite literally priceless. Mitch has to bite the inside of his lip to keep from losing it laughing, and he manages to make it to a parking spot and turn the car off before saying anything. "So," he begins.

"No," Matí says, turning to shake his head at Mitch. "You are _lying_ to me right now."

"Sorry, buddy," Mitch says, putting as much fake sympathy into his voice as he can manage. "Your dad loved midnight Taco Bell more than pretty much anything else in the world."

"There's no way Abi knows," Matí says, staring out the window. "Right?"

"Right," Mitch confirms. "I was sworn to so much secrecy pretty much every time we made a takeout run. There were photos of us eating in a Wendy's once, but that was only _public_ shame. His secret shame..." He trails off and waits until Matí looks at him before gesturing at the building. "I once saw him eat four of the Doritos Locos tacos in one sitting."

Matí jerks almost violently. "The _what?_ "

Mitch starts laughing. "They discontinued them a while ago," he says. "The shell was actually a giant taco-shaped Dorito."

"No," Matí repeats, but there's a smile spreading slowly across his face. "That's _disgusting._ "

"I mean, yeah," Mitch says. He's still sort of laughing. "But they were also super good. Gross, but good."

"Okay, no, now I have to know," Matí says, unbuckling his belt. He throws the door open and climbs out, then leans back in to look at Mitch. "Come on, Uncle Mitch, I have a mighty need over here."

Mitch laughs and shakes his head, but does as he's asked; there's a lot of Auston in Matí, sure, but his need to just know things, his insatiable curiosity, that's all Jaymee. She'd been in grad school when Matí was born, but it hadn't stopped her from graduating with honours from U of T's biology program. It's how she and Auston met, Mitch suddenly remembers. Her doctoral research was in the SickKids wing where Auston did a lot of his meet-and-greets, and she'd shown him how one of the new treatments they were developing was supposed to work, and neither of them ever really looked back.

Matí is already ordering when Mitch makes it inside; for a kid who had been proclaiming how gross Taco Bell was a few minutes ago, he sure seems like he knows exactly what to order at one now. He waves Mitch over. "I ordered a few things," he announces. "They're gonna put all the supreme taco filling stuff in a chili cup for me, and they have bags of Doritos." He waves a bright red chip bag at Mitch triumphantly, and Mitch can't help but smile.

"I'll have whatever he's having," he tells the girl behind the counter. "For science."

The girl gives him a weird look, but Matí is laughing as he tosses another bag of Doritos up on the counter. "And two Mountain Dews," he says, glancing over at Mitch with a sly smile on his face. "Apparently that's all that keeps you going."

Mitch laughs. "That's the rumour," he agrees. These days it's more like a quiet cup of coffee in the mornings and an iced tea with supper, but he remembers being twenty and needing a boost, remembers how the story had spread like wildfire. It's probably not news that he's in an indulgent mood tonight, anyway, and if the caffeine keeps him up now like it hadn't when he was closer to Matí's age, well, that'll be between him and the guest room at Ema's house.

Matí is almost bouncing as the girl hands them their soda fountain cups, so Mitch dispatches him to get their drinks while he pays. The girl doesn't comment as she runs Mitch's card, but she does blink in a little bit of surprise when Mitch digs around in his wallet and pulls out a twenty. "For you and whoever has to prepare whatever crazy amount of food we just ordered," he says, giving her what he hopes comes off as an apologetic smile. "I know you were probably hoping for a quiet closing shift."

"Thanks," she says, smiling a little as she takes the cash. "It's no big, I promise, but thanks."

"Just yell when it's up, and we'll come get it," Mitch adds. "Seriously. I know there's no way you guys get paid enough to ferry all that crap out to us."

It makes her laugh a little. "Will do."

"Okay," Matí says as Mitch heads to the table he'd chosen. It's the biggest one in the seating area by far, and between that and the amount of Taco Bell Mitch had just put on his card, he's honestly a little frightened for whatever is about to happen. "We need a plan of attack. There will be regular tacos, because we need a control group, and I got some hard ones and some soft ones just for comparison."

Mitch laughs softly. "Your mom would be so proud of you right now."

It's an offhand sort of comment, mostly because it had just occurred to Mitch on the way in, but Matí's hands still on the table. "She would?" he asks cautiously.

"Totally," Mitch confirms. "She was a scientist. Research was her jam, and I'm pretty sure just hearing you say 'control group' would make her cry with happiness."

Matí's smile is small and a little strained. "I feel like I don't know her that well," he confesses. "Like, I know a bunch about Dad, because Abi and Belo were _his_ parents, but Mom's parents..."

Mitch winces a little. Peter and Rosalind had been at the funeral, Mitch remembers, too haunted and grief-stricken by the loss of their only child to do much more than drift from mourner to mourner. They hadn't been openly disapproving of Jaymee and Auston, Mitch knows, but he also knows that Auston had overheard at least one conversation between Jaymee and her mother about her choosing to marry a hockey player. He'd known that the Hernandezes hadn't fought Ema and Brian at all for custody of Matí, and he realises with a sort of guilt that he'd never really bothered to see if they were keeping in touch. Apparently they hadn't bothered.

"I knew her," Mitch says a little belatedly. "Not as well as I knew your dad, of course, but I knew your mom, too. She was married to my best friend, so that made her important to me, too."

Matí blinks a few times. "I'd love to hear some more about her," he says quietly. "Whatever you know, whatever you remember."

Mitch's heart seizes in his chest. It's not uncommon when he's around Auston's family, and it's especially true when he's around Matí for more than the span of a phone call. "You look a lot like your dad," he says, grasping for something, anything. "But, thank god, you have your mom's hair."

It makes Matí laugh, and yeah, he looks like Auston, his wide, bright smile flashing across his face before disappearing again. "I'm glad I don't have his hairline," Matí says, light and mischievous. "I've seen pictures."

Mitch laughs at that. "He pretended it wasn't receding," he reveals, leaning in a little. "Like, all the time. He kept changing his hairstyle because he was trying to cover it up."

" _Dad,_ " Matí groans, leaning his head back against the cracked vinyl of the booth. "You should've just accepted it. Or gotten really into hats or something."

"I promise you that as his best friend, I tried really hard to talk some fashion sense into him," Mitch says solemnly. "But if there's one thing your dad had, it was his own style. He was in a bunch of magazine shoots and stuff, and he had a clothing line for a while."

Matí snorts. "Uncle Will sends me the picture of Dad in that gorilla sweatshirt for my birthday every year," he says flatly. "I'm not giving him any style cred."

"Oh my god, the Harambe sweater," Mitch says, grinning hard. "Do you want to know something amazing?"

"The last thing you revealed to me is that my Hispanic father loved Taco Bell," Matí says warily. "I don't know if I'm ready for another revelation tonight, Uncle Mitch."

Mitch snorts. "Fair," he concedes. "Let me know if you want to know, though. I'll hold onto the thought."

Matí rolls his eyes like only a fifteen-year-old can. "I mean, _yeah,_ now I have to know."

"I still have that sweatshirt," Mitch says, leaning over the table like he's confiding a secret. "I helped clean out your family's apartment after, and Ema told me that if I wanted any of the stuff that they didn't want, I could have it."

"You," Matí says slowly. "Out of everything there, you took the _gorilla sweatshirt?_ "

Mitch starts laughing again. "I took some other stuff, too," he protests. Photos, mementos, things that would remind him of Auston and Jaymee but didn't hold a lot of significance for Auston's parents. He has a framed photo of the three of them at a team party of some sort, Auston and Jaymee snuggled into each other on a sofa with Mitch sitting in both of their laps. It's still in the frame Mitch had found it in, a hockey stick cut and glued back together at perfect right angles, a piece of glass over the print. He doesn't have a lot of time to sit around in his living room these days, but it's right there on the mantle for him to see when he's home. "But that sweatshirt, man. I don't know if I can explain all the levels involved in why I wanted it."

"I mean," Matí says, taking a sip of his Mountain Dew. "It was Dad's, and Dad was your best friend. I guess that's enough of a reason, even if I think you should have kept, like, a suit or something."

Mitch snorts. "Your dad was built like a brick shithouse," he says. "I was always scrawny compared to him. HIs suits would've looked hilarious on me."

"You do look like a pencil person next to a brick wall in all the old team pictures," Matí says thoughtfully. His face cracks into a smile a moment later, like he can't stop his reaction to his own joke, and Mitch can only roll his eyes as Matí laughs.

-0-

Mitch isn't used to mornings in the Matthews household, per se, but he's spent enough time visiting to know that when he pulls himself out of bed in the morning and heads down the stairs, it'll be Brian in the kitchen, not Ema. He's very much the "early to bed, early to rise" kind of person, and he's enjoyed his early coffee and newspaper routine for as long as Mitch has known him.

"Mitch," Brian says with a smile as Mitch walks in and heads for the coffee mug Brian had left on the counter. "The pot's fresh, and I picked up the creamer you like when I was at the store yesterday."

"You're an actual saint," Mitch says as he opens the refrigerator. Brian laughs as Mitch locates the creamer and pours a healthy amount into the bottom of his mug. He adds coffee on top, and then shrugs and pours in a little more creamer. It's going to be that kind of morning, probably. "How're you doing?"

Brian shrugs and sighs, setting his paper down. "I'm handling things. It's not like the anniversary was sneaking up on us or anything."

"Yeah," Mitch says, sitting at the table. "I hope the media hasn't been too bad."

"You know how they are," Brian says, smiling a little. "Everything's a story, regardless of how many feelings you have to cut through to find it."

Mitch winces. "I can make some calls," he offers. He probably should have thought about doing it sooner; TSN probably hasn't been bothering them too much, not with Morgan Rielly still working pretty prominently for them, but there's no way some of the other networks haven't been banging down the door.

"Ema and I gave one interview, and then Pat stepped in and kept everyone off our backs, mostly," Brian says.

"Pat?" Mitch asks, blinking a little. "Pat Brisson?"

"He's kept in touch," Brian says, smile a little distant. "We always had a good relationship, Pat and our family. He's always made time for us if we needed it."

It's something Mitch hadn't known, hadn't thought to check on; he has a friendly enough relationship with his own agent, even though he hasn't been playing for a while now, but it's more the "Christmas cards and birthday text" kind of thing than anything else. He's glad to know that someone else has been in the Matthews' corner this whole time.

"So there will be a piece on The Players' Tribune," Brian adds. "And I'm sure all the networks will cobble together whatever footage they have, but there's nothing new coming from us."

"I'm glad you didn't have to deal with too much of it," Mitch says. "Apparently I needed to call Pat, too."

Brian's gaze sharpens. "How about you, Mitch?" he asks. "How are you doing?"

Mitch smiles, but he can tell it doesn't even come close to reaching his eyes. "Well enough. I keep busy, and I talk about Auston enough for the Foundation that they didn't really hound me for soundbites."

"How many new facilities this year?" Brian asks, leaning back a little.

Mitch hesitates. "You want me to talk shop?" he asks. "Because I can, but I'm told that I get way too into it and I lose people pretty quickly."

Brian laughs and spreads his hands. "We've got time before Matí gets up," he says. "Go ahead and get into it."

Mitch loves what he's doing, and he doesn't get to talk about it much with people who have the kind of knowledge that Brian has. Ema and Brian had helped Mitch set up the Auston Matthews Foundation two years after Auston died, a year after Mitch's contract finished and he hadn't had the heart to sign another. The Foundation identifies areas in North America where minorities don't have the opportunity to play hockey, and they go in and work with local officials and organisations to make sure there's a safe place for kids to play, someone to teach them what they're doing, and equipment for them to use. Mitch had been a figurehead at first, able to paste a smile on and shake hands while the work was being done by other people, but he'd split his time between talking to possible donors and working towards a marketing degree, and now he's in charge of the Foundation in a lot more than name only. Most people he tries to talk to about his work, though, either work with him and therefore know a lot about it already, or don't know much at all about it and get lost when Mitch starts getting energetic about building hockey programs in First Nations communities.

"We've been contacted by a woman in Nunavut," Mitch says. "They have a rink in the capital that's pretty much falling apart, and enough kids there to field a coed team. We're starting talks about repairs and upgrades, and I'm already in touch with a few places about equipment, too."

"Nunavut," Brian says, smiling. "Wow. You really weren't kidding when you said you wanted to put rinks everywhere."

Mitch smiles. "Not to paraphrase our mission statement at you or anything, but bringing hockey to disadvantaged kids is kind of what we do."

"I wrote your mission statement," Brian replies, clearly amused. "I might know a thing or two about the wording."

"You might," Mitch agrees, laughing a little. "We're doing well, Brian. We're doing really well."

"I'm glad," Brian says simply, and they sit and talk about the Foundation for a while. It's nice, Mitch thinks. It's really nice.

-0-

"So," Matí says. They're in an Uber on the way to the car rental place; Mitch knows that it would have been a lot easier to just get a car at the airport last night, but Ema had offered to pick him up, and he'd caved instantly at the prospect of seeing her face-to-face that much sooner. "Abi told me that we were gonna do something this weekend. Spoilers?"

Mitch snorts. "We're going to rent a car right now," he says. "And then we're gonna... I don't know. Drive around."

"Drive around," Matí says, clearly a little doubtful. "To..."

"I don't know," Mitch says honestly. "I figured you could use some time away from home, and I didn't really think about it much past that. Got anywhere you want to see?"

"Vegas," Matí says instantly, grinning when Mitch rolls his eyes. "Can't blame a guy for trying, right?"

"I can and I will," Mitch says, smiling back. "Try again."

Matí's quiet for a moment. He's the special kind of unsubtle that Mitch has come to know all teenagers are; he tilts his head so he's facing Mitch, but purposefully trains his eyes away so he's not looking directly at Mitch. He sighs after a little while, and Mitch bites his cheek as Matí finally looks at him. "I mean," he says, and his voice is quieter this time, a little nervous. "I kind of want to... I don't know. See."

"See," Mitch echoes. "Give me something else to go on here, bud."

"You put up rinks with my dad's name on them," Matí says quietly. "And, like. I know that it's not gonna answer any of my questions or whatever, but that's how people know him now, right? I want to see one of the rinks you've built with the Foundation, see how it works. Something like that."

It takes a lot for Mitch to be rendered speechless; it makes sense, he thinks a little wildly, that it would be Auston's son who did it to him. Auston, who constantly teased him for never shutting up; Jaymee, too, who always laughed when Mitch told story after story and asked him if he was just an endless well of words. Here he is now, so long after they were taken from him too soon, and their son has managed to make him lose all sense of speech for a moment.

"We don't have to," Matí says, glancing away again when Mitch doesn't say anything. "The Grand Canyon's cool, and it's not too far a drive from here. It would be neat to see it again."

"No, Matí, that's," Mitch starts, then shakes his head. "I'm just surprised. I think that's a great idea, honestly."

"Yeah?" Matí asks, a small, hopeful note in his voice as he looks back at Mitch. "It's not dumb?"

"It's not dumb," Mitch says firmly. "I know we've kind of kept you away from it, and we had what I think were pretty good reasons when you were little, but you're definitely old enough to make your own decisions about that now. I'll check with your grandparents just to make sure, but I really do think it's a great idea."

"Awesome," Matí says, smiling widely. "I thought you might think it was lame."

Mitch laughs. "I spent an hour and a half this morning telling Brian about a new project we're starting in Nunavut. I definitely don't think anything we do is lame."

"Nunavut," Matí echoes. "That's the northern one, right? With, like, seven people living there?"

"That's the one," Mitch confirms. "There's a rink that's pretty much falling down in the capital. We're going to fix it up, get them some new equipment. We might be able to get a coach to do a few months up there, too, but I don't know for sure yet."

"Wow," Matí says. "Belo says that Dad would've been super happy, knowing that his name was being used to spread hockey everywhere. That really is _everywhere,_ huh?"

"I'm trying," Mitch says, smiling a little. "He really loved hockey. And baseball, but it made a lot more sense to start a hockey foundation in his memory."

Matí laughs. "I bet."

"We're actually really close to one of the first rinks we ever built," Mitch says. "We wanted to start close to home, I guess, and we had an application from one of the reservations near here. I think it's, like, less than an hour from here, actually."

"Whoa, really?" Matí asks. "I had no idea you were ever around here with Foundation stuff."

"It's not like we stealth drop rinks in, but we don't make things super public," Mitch says, shrugging. "And we help with upkeep and stuff like that, but it's not like we run the places ourselves. We're not in the news for long once things get running, and like I said, it was one of the early ones. You were still really young."

"Can we go?" Matí asks, clearly eager. "Maybe this afternoon? If it's not far—"

"Not this afternoon," Mitch cuts in. "I don't just want to drop in without warning. I'll need to make a couple of phone calls first, see if they mind if we stop by."

Matí deflates a little. "Oh, right," he says. "Don't want to interrupt if they've got stuff going on."

"Eh," Mitch says, shrugging a little. "That's definitely part of it, but it's also just respectful, y'know? Like, it probably wouldn't go over well if you just showed up unannounced at someone's house today just because you were friends when you were little kids."

"Right," Matí says. "Okay. Well, let me know if it works, I guess."

Mitch laughs. "I will."

-0-

The drive to Sacaton is fairly easy, even though Mitch hasn't had to do it in eight years. It's not quite a straight shot from the Matthews house, but it's close enough to it, and for once the GPS in the windshield display actually looks like it knows where he's going, which is a nice surprise. It leaves Mitch free to talk to Matí, which is good, because Matí's practically buzzing with excitement in his seat.

"Sorry I never thought of taking you to one of the rinks before," Mitch offers as they get on the highway. "We figured it would just be confusing when you were little, all these hockey rinks with your dad's photo hanging somewhere, but him not being there."

Matí makes a face. "Yeah," he says. "I think I was old enough to get that he wouldn't be there? But I was probably still little enough that I'd be really sad about it."

Mitch swallows hard. "Not gonna lie to you, bud," he says. "Sometimes I still get really sad about it."

"I mean, me too," Matí says. "But... like, don't get me wrong, I miss him and Mom and I wish they were still here, but... I was really little, Uncle Mitch. Like, you knew them for longer than I did."

"I did," Mitch acknowledges. "But they weren't my parents."

It makes Matí huff an approximation of a laugh, a tired little thing that has no right coming out of the mouth of someone so young and so generally happy. "But everyone expects to outlive their parents, right? I didn't get to have mine for as long as most people do, but it's not like Abi and Belo. Nobody expects to have to bury their own kid."

"Matí," Mitch says, something helpless and awful rising in his chest.

"No, like," Matí says, turning towards Mitch. "What happened wasn't okay, and I'm not trying to say it is at all. But a lot of the time, I think that I'm not the one who lost the most when my parents died."

Mitch takes a deep breath, and then another. He tries to keep his breathing deep and even, but he hasn't driven another mile before he pulls the car over on the shoulder of the highway. He turns to Matí, who's kind of just watching him, something sad in his expression, but also something quiet and solid.

"You are so much like your mother," Mitch whispers. He can feel the tears trying to clog up his throat, and coughing doesn't really do anything to dislodge them. "You're so practical, and you make me see things in ways that I haven't really thought about before, and at the same time I want to shake you a little." He laughs, and it's definitely watery as he smiles at Matí. "I'm gonna tell you something I told her once, okay?"

"Okay," Matí says slowly. "Are you mad?"

"No, no," Mitch chokes out. "I'm not mad, bud. Just... it's okay for things to affect you however they affect you, and you don't have to change your reactions based on what you think other people need or think. Okay?"

"Okay," Matí says, frowning a little. "That's just what I think, though. I miss them, and I love them a lot still, but I don't really cry over them anymore." He smiles a little, and it's Auston's facial expression with Jaymee's compassion as he reaches out to lay a hand on Mitch's shoulder. "Not that I blame you, Uncle Mitch, but I think you might be kind of proving my point right now."

"Are you up for a hug?" Mitch asks. "Because I am so up for a hug right now."

Matí laughs and unbuckles his seat belt. It's nothing like hugging Auston; Auston had been built like an extra-wide refrigerator, and he was taller and his hair was way worse. There's something familiar about hugging Matí all the same, and not just because Mitch has been giving him hugs since the literal, actual day he was born. It's Ema's influence, probably; she taught Auston how to hug, after all. She's the hug master.

Mitch pulls back after a long moment and wipes at his face. "Thanks," he says. His voice is kind of shot and he's sure he looks like kind of a wreck, but Matí just smiles at him.

"Sure," he says. "Any time."

"Anyway," Mitch says. He gestures to the glove box. "Can you see if there's tissues or something in there? I really want to blow my nose before we get going again, and all I have in my wallet is a couple of receipts."

Matí pulls the glove box open, but all he pulls out is the owner's manual. "I mean," he says, shrugging a little. "The receipt won't be comfortable, but use what you've got, I guess?"

Mitch starts laughing. "Oh my god, here's a life lesson from your dad," he says. He rubs at his eyes a little more, making sure his face is mostly dry, and gestures for Matí to buckle back up. He'll just deal with it and blow his nose when they get there. "So on a road trip one time, okay, he had a cold. We were on the bus from the game to the hotel after, and he had to blow his nose so badly, and the only thing we could find was an empty M&Ms bag that we were pretty sure was Brownie's."

"So he used it," Matí guesses.

"So he used it," Mitch agrees. "Y'know how M&Ms bags are, like, slippery, right?"

It's a shame Mitch is merging into traffic again, because he'd love to see the look on Matí's face as the image dawns on him: Auston blowing his nose, and the mess ending up all over his face because he was using something too smooth to actually catch any of it "Oh, gross,' he says after a moment, but he's laughing, a wild, bone-deep kind of thing.

"It was," Mitch agrees, laughing with him. "So I've made a point to not use anything other than a tissue or tissue-related product since then. Can't be too careful."

"Wait, wait," Matí says. "You were on a bus? A charter bus? Wasn't there a bathroom?"

"Oh my god," Mitch says, starting to laugh again. "Oh my god, this was probably almost twenty years ago, and I never even thought about that."

Matí starts laughing again. "Wow," he says, and he's laughing hard enough that his voice is high-pitched as he forces the word out. "Road trips with you guys must have been something else."

"They really were," Mitch manages, trying to stop laughing so he can catch his breath. "Oh, man, do I have some stories, though."

"Tell me all of them," Matí says, and Mitch can hear the smile in his voice as he settles back into his seat.

-0-

"Huh," is Matí's entire reaction as they drive slowly through Sacaton.

"We're almost to the rink," Mitch says. "Any questions before we get there?"

"It's," Matí says, and when Mitch glances over, he's frowning. "It's so small here. And, like…"

"They don't have a lot," Mitch supplies when Matí doesn't go on. "That's part of what we do, though. We go to the places that wouldn't be able to get a rink put up on their own, and we help them build one and send people to work with the locals and we get as much equipment for them as we can. We're trying to make 'hockey is for everyone' a real thing."

"I know," Matí says. He's still staring out the window. "But I think that I didn't really get it until right now."

Mitch pulls into the rink and parks. "Your dad was a big advocate for it," he says, kind of quietly. "He knew he kind of lucked into hockey. Sports in general, really. I remember talking to him our rookie year about how there was all this attention on him for being Mexican-American and for being the first overall pick and for being from Arizona, and he told me that he'd bet there was someone our age out there who was way better than he'd ever be, but they were never given the chance to play, so we'd never know about them."

"Wow," Matí says. "That's... wow."

"And so the idea for the Auston Matthews Foundation was born," Mitch says, smiling a little. "Except I wasn't ever supposed to be the one running it, but life's like that sometimes."

Matí laughs a little. "I guess it is."

"Anyway," Mitch says, unbuckling his seatbelt. "Ready to go inside?"

"Yeah, let's do it," Matí says.

Mitch smiles as he walks in the door and sees who's waiting for them "Nadya, hi," he says, reaching out to shake her hand. "How's it going around here?"

"It smells like a locker room," Nadya says, blunt but friendly. "So it's pretty great, I guess."

Mitch laughs. "We can add Febreze to your supply list."

"Nah," Nadya says. "Let 'em sweat. There's nothing wrong with smelling like you worked your ass off out there."

"You know what, you're right," Mitch says. He turns and smiles at Matí. "This is Nadya Morago. She oversees things here at the rink, and she's the local coach. Nadya, this is Matías Hernandez."

"I'm," Matí says. He pauses, then clears his throat. "Auston Matthews was my dad. I just wanted to see..."

Nadya's face is a little gruff by nature, but it softens when she puts the pieces together. "Well, of course you did," she says. "We can take a walk through the whole building, see what there is to see. We've got a practice here in a few hours, and you're welcome to stick around and watch if you want." She turns to level a hard look at Mitch. "But no sidelines coaching, got it?"

Mitch laughs. "I'm a terrible coach," he says, raising both hands. "Also, this is your show, Nadya. I'm definitely not here to try to talk over whatever you're teaching your team, unless you're teaching them to beat the shit out of each other."

"Only when the other team deserves it," Nadya says. "And since we don't really do much more than scrimmage against ourselves, I do my best to not let it get that far."

"Good call," Mitch says. "Shall we?"

Nadya gestures down the hallway, and she does a great job of narrating as they go. Mitch knows that she's had to give similar tours a bunch of times: to the council that runs things on the reservation, to donors who were still a little wary about investing in such a new project, to various Foundation members who wanted to see for themselves how things were actually going. She's good at it and it shows, and Matí follows her around like a puppy, listening avidly as she tells him about locker room paint colours and the way they go about replacing the boards if something goes wrong.

"Do you want to see the offices?" she asks when they've finished walking around the public parts of the building. The question is directed at both of them, Mitch knows; Matí might be interested and he might not, but there's a photo of Auston and Jaymee in the director's room of every rink the Foundation works with. If Matí wants to see, Mitch should warn him, and he's grateful to Nadya for giving him the heads-up before just plunging in.

"I'd like to," Matí says, glancing at Mitch as if he can pick up on the tension. "If that's okay, Uncle Mitch?"

"It's okay with me," Mitch says. "But you need to know that there's a photo of your parents back there. I don't want you to be surprised by it."

Matí gives him a lopsided smile. "I kinda figured there would be somewhere," he says. "This rink was built with help from the _Auston Matthews Foundation_. It would be a little weird if there wasn't something like that here."

Nadya laughs. "You're not wrong," she says. "If you want to see, well, come on this way."  
She leads them through a door marked _Employees Only_ , and even though Mitch has been here before, he's still a little surprised by how small, how cramped it is. It's necessary sometimes; as much as Mitch would love to have built a brand-new facility everywhere they go, the Foundation often works with buildings that are already in place, adding onto or restructuring what's already there so the cost is lessened. It's not a perfect system, but it's one that Mitch is used to working in now. It doesn't mean he doesn't wish that he could have figured out a way to give Nadya and her people more space to work with.

"This is where the magic happens," Nadya says, gesturing grandly at the computer desk and stacks of files around it. She turns back to smile at Matí, then laugh a little. "Not really. But this is where I spend a lot of my time."

"It's great," Matí says warmly, and it's the exact tone of voice Auston had used to tell patients at SickKids that they were doing well with their treatments, that they'd be better enough to go home soon. It's friendly and encouraging and so, so sincere, and Mitch remembers marvelling at how easily it had seemed to come to Auston when he was eighteen, nineteen, twenty years old. It must be genetic, Mitch thinks fondly, a little wonderingly. There's not a chance that Matí remembers Auston using that tone of voice, but here he is, echoing his father perfectly.

"We do what we can here," Nadya says. "And sometimes it feels like we aren't doing much, and that we don't have much to show for it. But that's just small-town life sometimes, and you have to keep pushing through. You never know whose life you might be affecting for the better, and that's really what our aim is here."

Matí looks around. "I bet," he says, and Mitch can see him swallow hard as his gaze falls on the photo of his parents. "I bet they'd be really proud. Really happy to see everything that people are doing in their memory."

"I hope so," Nadya says. "I'm sorry you had to lose them, Matías, but I'm glad that some good was able to come out of it. It's all we can hope for, I think, that whatever mark we make on the world is a good one in the end."

Matí turns back to smile at her. "That's a good way to think about it," he says. "Thanks, Nadya. For showing us around, and for letting us show up on such short notice. Uncle Mitch explained that there's some kind of non-interference thing on the Foundation's side once you have everything set up."

Nadya laughs. "It's just so we don't have them sticking their noses into our business," she fake-whispers to Matí while winking at Mitch. "But now that you brought him here, I'm going to bug him about getting us some new goalie gear. The stuff we have now won't fit the new kid. She's tiny."

It makes Matí laugh, too. "I'll see if I can talk him into it," he says, fake-whispering right back, and all Mitch can do is smile.

-0-

"So," Matí says. They're driving back to Scottsdale, and Matí's been quiet for the first half of the ride. "There was a college fair at school before we let out for the summer."

 

"Oh yeah?" Mitch asks. he checks his mirrors and glances back so he can change lanes. "See anything you like?"

 

"Not a specific school, not yet," Matí says, shrugging a little. "But I was talking to someone from UCLA about what to major in if you want to work in non-profits, and she said that it's a good idea to do an internship if you can find one."

 

Mitch glances over at Matí, but he's staring out the window. "You want to work in non-profits, huh?" he asks. "Not a lot of money there."

 

Matí snorts and turns to look at him. "Like I need to worry about that. Abi told me how much of Dad's contract money is in trust for me, and they've been working with some sort of finances guy for a while. It's not actually mine to use until I'm 21, but Belo and Abi said I can start going to those meetings with them so I know what's going on. I don't need a high-paying job, and I know that makes me really lucky, so I want to kind of use that luck to give back."

 

His voice gets more and more passionate as he speaks, and Mitch doesn't know when Matí grew from the little boy who'd begged Mitch to play mini-sticks with him as Jaymee and Auston laughed into this thoughtful, compassionate young man who's planning his future around helping people, but he does know that he's so, so lucky that Matí is part of his life. It makes Mitch swallow hard.

 

"An internship," he says instead of voicing that. There's a time and a place, and he'd really rather not be driving a car when he has that particular talk. "Is this your way of asking if you can tag along while I do some stuff this summer?"

 

"I know there's an application process," Matí says. "And I also know that me asking you to not give me, like, special consideration or whatever would be useless. But I don't just want to follow you around, Uncle Mitch. I want to _do_ stuff. I want to learn how to make a difference, and I want to start by really getting involved with the Foundation. I know there's not a lot that I can do when I'm this young, but—"

"Matí," Mitch interrupts. "There's plenty you can do, trust me. And I'd love to have you work with me over the summer, if we can work it out with your grandparents. I do a lot of travelling, and there's not an office anywhere near here. It would mean you spending time away from home, and I definitely don't want to agree to that without making sure they're okay with it first."

 

"Really?" Matí asks, surprise in his voice. "You'd want me to work with _you_?"

Mitch glances over again. "Why wouldn't I want that?" he asks, puzzled.

 

Matí laughs. "I mean, you run the Foundation," he says. "You have a whole bunch of important stuff to do. I figured that you'd let me intern, but I thought it would be, like, getting coffee for people in the office while you did important stuff, and we could talk about it over dinner sometimes or something."

"Okay, well, if you want to work at a non-profit, there's stuff you should know," Mitch says, laughing a little. "And the first thing is that there's always, like, a million things that need to be done, and there are never enough people there to do them. If you're going to intern, we're definitely putting you to work."

 

"Okay," Matí says eagerly. "I can do it."

 

"And," Mitch adds, "if you're going to intern with _us_ , then you're going to intern with _me_." He pauses, trying to figure out how to say everything that's running through his head. For all that Matí is mature for his age, he's still a kid, and sometimes it's easy to say the wrong thing and end up hurting his feelings. Mitch vividly remembers Matí's fourteenth birthday party, and he likes to think he's put a lot of work in so he doesn't stick his foot in his mouth so much anymore. "You should see what we do, how much work it is, what all the steps of the process are. And you should see how _worth it_ it is, because sometimes the only thing that keeps me doing what I do is knowing exactly what the results will be. It's not just rinks, Matí."

 

"I know," Matí says. "You do coach training and stuff, too."

 

Mitch shakes his head as he takes the exit towards the Matthews home. "Do you know why we don't just hire coaches and stick them in the rinks we build?"

 

Matí frowns. "Because that would be expensive?"

 

"No," Mitch says. "Well, I mean, yeah, but that's not why."

 

"Okay," Matí says slowly. "I'm out of guesses."

 

"Because the Foundation isn't in place to run things, or to tell people what to do," Mitch explains. "Bringing hockey to a community is an amazing, incredible thing, and I'm glad to be a part of it, but it's not just for the kids. It's for the parents and the aunts and uncles and the people in the town. We help train local coaches because those are the people who know those kids, and they know the community, and they know what the people there need." He takes a breath and lets it out. "Can you imagine what it would be like if we had put some random white guy coach in Nadya's rink?"

 

"Huh," Matí says slowly. "It would be really... it wouldn't look good. And it probably wouldn't work right."

 

"It wouldn't," Mitch agrees. "White people sticking their noses where they don't belong has gotten a whole lot of bullshit accomplished over the years. We have a lot of resources, and we have a lot of power, and sometimes the best way to use all that is to give people who don't have either of those things the tools they need to help themselves. Nadya doesn't need me to coach the kids on her reservation, and she doesn't need me to decide who would be best at it. Instead, we had people work with her and a few other people in the community until they felt comfortable doing it on their own, and we let them know that if they ever had any questions or problems, all they had to do was call us."

"So it's not just about the hockey, or about finding the next NHL players," Matí says. "It's about the whole community."

 

"Exactly," Mitch says. "It's about listening to people, and giving them the support they need to do something for their communities."

"That's even cooler than I thought," Matí says, laughing a little. "And I already thought you were doing some pretty cool stuff."

"Wait, you think I'm _cool_?" Mitch asks, delighted. "When did this happen? This is new!"

"I mean, let's not go that far," Matí says, but now he's laughing full-out, and Mitch can't help but join him.

-0-

Ema meets them at the door with a big suitcase and a cooler, and Matí turns to face Mitch, eyes narrowed a little. "What did you plan?"

"Who says I planned anything?" Mitch asks innocently as he drags the cooler to the car. "Maybe I didn't plan anything. Maybe I'm just doing what your grandparents planned for us."

Ema laughs. "You'll be fine, Matí," she says, reaching her arms out. Matí folds into them easily, somehow managing to tuck himself into Ema's embrace even though he's been bigger than her for a while now. "You and Mitch have fun, and I'll see you on Tuesday."

"Tuesday," Matí repeats, and his expression is alarmed, but he's clearly barely holding back a laugh. "What in the world is going on?"

Mitch finishes shoving the cooler into the back seat and gestures at the suitcase. "Help me get that into the trunk and I'll tell you."

"Maybe I don't like surprises," Matí says as he grabs the handle on the suitcase. "Maybe I need to know things."

"Since when?" Mitch snorts, popping the trunk and stepping back. "Because I very clearly remember you begging me to ask Abi to throw you a surprise party, and then being so sad when I told you she said no, and then how happy you were when you found out I was lying about it."

Matí rolls his eyes as he shoves the suitcase into the trunk. "I was _twelve_."

"Right, I forgot," Mitch says, barely holding back a laugh. "Forever ago. I don't know how I even remembered it in the first place."

"It's because you're old, so your mind is probably going," Matí says, laughing and dancing back when Mitch swats at him. "Where are we going?"

"Into the car, first and foremost," Mitch says, heading for the driver's seat. He's not married and he doesn't have kids of his own, but he's always known the appeal of dad jokes, and they're honestly way funnier to use on Matí than they ever had been to use on teammates. "And then to a Starbucks. I need a coffee."

"Horchata frapp," Matí says immediately. "Don't tell—"

"—Aunt Alex," Mitch finishes with him. "Trust me, I remember. I won't tell."

"Good," Matí says, buckling his seat belt. "Where to after that? And don't say the highway."

Mitch laughs. "Even if it's true?"

"Uncle _Mitch_ ," Matí groans. "Did you annoy my dad like this?"

"Every time I possibly could," Mitch says cheerily as he starts the car. "I drove us to and from practice and most games our rookie year. At least I'm not gonna try to sing Bieber at you the entire drive like I did to him."

Matí snorts. "Yeah, no thanks, I don't really like classic pop."

Mitch puts a hand to his chest. " _Classic pop_ ," he repeats. "Good god, when did I get old?"

"Probably when I was born," Matí says, all fake-thoughtful. "The math seems right."

"I'll give you math," Mitch says, laughing. "So you want to know where we're going, huh?"

" _Yes_ ," Matí says, voice emphatic. "Please."

"Well, since you asked so nicely," Mitch says, pulling out of the driveway. They pause to wave at Ema, and then Mitch keeps driving. "We're going to Starbucks—"

Matí groans, loud and exaggerated.

"—and then, I don't know, you said something about Vegas," Mitch finishes casually.

Mitch counts to five in his head before Matí laughs, sounding incredulous. "What? Really?"

"Super really," Mitch confirms. "We're not going to be doing anything too crazy, but you said Vegas, so I figured we'd go to Vegas for a little while."

Matí laughs again. "Is there even anything I can do in Vegas?"

"Of course there is," Mitch says, grinning. "I googled."

"If we're going to, like, a petting zoo and a theme park because you searched for 'what to do with kids in Vegas,'" Matí begins.

"Give me a little credit," Mitch protests, laughing. "There are shows we can go to. An aquarium. The Hoover Dam isn't far from there, if you want to do some sightseeing."

Matí already has his phone out, and he's scrolling intently through whatever search results he came up with. "Would it be lame to see Cirque du Soleil?"

"Uh, that would be the opposite of lame," Mitch replies. "I didn't book anything because I wasn't sure what you'd want to do, but Cirque sounds awesome."

Matí looks up and grins as Mitch pulls into Starbucks. "This is gonna be so much fun, Uncle Mitch," he says, sounding excited. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," Mitch says, smiling back at him. He doesn't mention that he thought about the days between now and the anniversary, about spending them at home with the Matthews family, about feeling the tension and the sadness and the resurfacing grief build as time ticked closer and closer, and decided that neither he nor Matí needed that. Auston would much rather be remembered as the fun, vibrant guy he was, and honestly, Mitch can't think of a much better way to honour his memory than by taking his kid to Vegas for the first time. "You stay here and find us things to do. I'll get our coffee."

"They have dance crews," Matí says, possibly in response to Mitch, possibly just because he's fascinated. "And concerts every single night."

Mitch laughs and gets out of the car. "We have a few days," he says. "Plan them wisely."

-0-

Vegas is, in a word, fun.

It sounds like such an understatement when Mitch thinks about it that way, but it's fun in a way he's never really experienced here before. Sure, he'd played in Vegas a bunch of times in his career, and he's been back for non-hockey related reasons a handful of times, but letting Matí plan their entire trip and fully committing to doing whatever he dreamed up makes it memorable in a way Mitch didn't know how to see coming.

"Where did you even find this place?" Mitch asks, looking around the botanical garden Matí had led them to this morning. It's their last day in Vegas, and Mitch had been anticipating cramming in another show, maybe a drive out to the Hoover Dam, possibly a museum or something, but Matí had brought them here instead.

"I googled, too," Matí answers, wandering around. "I thought it would be neat, y'know? All this green stuff right in the middle of the desert. You wouldn't expect it, but people did it anyway."

Mitch blinks a little. "Is this some sort of, I don't know, a plant metaphor for the Foundation?"

Matí turns to look at him, and there's a full three seconds of silence before he starts laughing. "Not on purpose," he says, wheezing. "But kind of, yeah."

"Not on purpose?" Mitch asks, grinning. "You sure about that?"

"I just figured it would be climate controlled, and it's hot as hell here," Matí says, gesturing at the plants. "They wouldn't want to kill all these nice trees and whatever, right?"

Mitch laughs at that. "I mean, you're definitely right," he agrees. "Kinda funny that we ended up here anyway, I think."

Matí is still smiling as he looks back at the tree he's standing in front of. "It is," he agrees. "D'you think they would have liked this place? My parents?"

It's probably just a question for the sake of asking a question, but Mitch considers it. Auston hadn't really had opinions on plants and stuff, he doesn't think; he can't remember them going to a place like this when they were playing together, and he doesn't think that Jaymee would have suggested it for a date night or something like that. "I don't know," he says slowly, looking around. "It's one of those things that we didn't really talk about because it never came up, I think. Like, it's not that we were putting off talking about some stuff because we were saving it for later, but..."

"But nobody ever talked about gardens," Matí finishes, still staring at his tree. "And there was no reason to talk about gardens, and you probably thought you could just ask later if you ever had questions."

"Yeah," Mitch says, looking down at the shrub in front of him without really seeing it. His voice is remarkably calm, he thinks, but he's starting to feel the creeping sadness, the knowledge that they're going to be driving back to Scottsdale soon, that tomorrow will mark ten years without Auston. They were supposed to grow up together, grow old, get together at alumni events and trash talk each other's careers with smiles on their faces. Mitch is long past the part of his grief that made him want to yell at the universe for taking his best friend away before they could do a million more things together, but he's also been doing this grieving thing for long enough to know that no matter how well you think you've laid it to rest, it always slides quietly back into your life when you least expect it.

He clears his throat without looking away from the shrub. "What else is on our plate for today?"

Matí sighs. "I kind of..." he starts quietly. "I mean, this has been great, Uncle Mitch, but would it be okay if we went home a little early?"

Mitch takes a deep breath and finally looks over at Matí. He's still staring up at his tree, but there's something sad in his expression now, something that Mitch knows is the mirror of every feeling going on in his own stomach right now. He crosses the pathway between them in two steps and pulls Matí into a hug. "Yeah," he says as Matí folds into him. "We can head home right now, if you want."

"I do," Matí says, not pulling away. "I know you brought me here because you figured it would be a good idea to distract me."

Mitch smiles a little. "You're too smart for your own good."

"It was a good idea," Matí says, finally pulling back so he can give Mitch a small, wavering smile. "But I think I'm ready to go home now. I really want to be with with my family so we can all remember Mom and Dad together."

Mitch pulls in another deep breath and nods. "We just have to go grab our stuff from the hotel," he says. "And then I'll take you home, and you guys can do the whole family thing."

Matí blinks at him for a moment, and the look on his face is the perfect combination of Jaymee's exasperated fondness and Auston just barely not rolling his eyes, and Mitch has to swallow hard. "Uncle Mitch," he says, words coming out slow, like he doesn't quite believe that he has to say them. " _You're_ family, too."

"I," Mitch says, but he doesn't really have a way to continue that thought. He just stands still for a moment, trying to process it, before he shakes his head a little. "Well, we'll see what your grandparents—"

"They want you there," Matí says, quiet but firm. "You were Dad's _best friend_. You've kept in touch with us, you've visited all the time, you made sure that people remembered my parents." He breathes in, deep and a little shuddery, and they're both crying a little now, standing on a pathway in some random greenhouse garden in Las Vegas. "I know I call a lot of Dad's old teammates my uncles, but you're the only one who's really my family, Uncle Mitch."

Mitch pulls him back in and hugs him tightly. He's had the thought before that maybe, just maybe, if he hugs Matí enough it'll start to make up for the fact that his parents can't anymore, but right now he needs this. From the way Matí clings right back, he does too.

"Okay," Mitch says, squeezing Matí once more before letting him go. "Okay, Matí. Let's go home."

Matí gives him a small smile and nods, wiping at his eyes as he turns to lead them out of the garden.

It's not going to be easy, Mitch thinks as he follows Matí out into the sunlight. Tomorrow's going to be awful, probably, none of them able to forget what the hockey world is remembering. The day after that will be a little better, though, and the day after that will be better still. There will be ups and downs, if the past ten years have been anything to go by, and there will be moments when Mitch misses Auston so much that he has to take a moment to collect himself, but there will be longer stretches, weeks and months and years, even, where he talks about Auston's drive and compassion and Jaymee's determination and love for those around her with a smile on his face. Honouring them, he thinks, in the best way he knows how—by remembering, and helping others remember.

"Come on, Uncle Mitch," Matí calls, already standing impatiently by the car.

"I'm coming, I'm coming," Mitch says, smiling as he walks a little faster.

They have to get home, after all. Home, where their family is waiting.

**Author's Note:**

> -:D?
> 
> -seriously y'all when i say "hey talk me out of writing this thing" and i don't get talked out of it, this is what happens
> 
> -follow me on twitter for yelling about fic and hockey! (but let me know who you are/how you found me, as i don't accept follow requests if i don't know who you are.)


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